Existing telecommunications systems have traditionally associated a specific telephone number and a single caller ID to a specific device/trunk. When a call is placed from a specific phone/trunk (e.g., a cell phone), the telephone number that was sent with the assigned caller ID is specific to the phone/trunk; this happens, regardless of who is actually calling. This causes problems when the person who is calling is different from the caller ID assigned to the specific phone/trunk. The caller ID will state that one person is calling, when in fact the call is actually from another person.
This problem gets worse when there are multiple parties calling from the same device; the caller ID will only indicate that a one person is calling, when in fact there are multiple parties calling. Some systems attempt to address this problem after a conference call is set up. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 7,266,189 describes a system that identifies who is speaking after a conference call is set up; however, the problem still exists that the parties are not identified prior to the initiation of the call.